Court Proceedings Continue in Chile in Case Involving BelAZ Subsidiary

Reform.news Editorial Team · 14 October 2026, 13:53

https://reform.news/en/court-proceedings-continue-in-chile-in-case-involving-belaz-subsidiary/

Court proceedings are continuing in Chile in a corruption case linked to the Chilean-Belarusian consortium Belaz Movitec SpA, which centres on suspicions of a network of influence within Chile’s judicial system. A former partner of a former Supreme Court judge has said that she knew about payments from the consortium’s lawyer.

Gonzalo Migueles, the former partner of former Chilean Supreme Court judge Ángela Vivanco, said that in September 2023 he told her about an arrangement under which he would receive money from lawyer Eduardo Lagos if favourable court rulings were issued for the Belarusian mining consortium Belaz-Movitec, Chilean publication CIPER reports, citing Migueles’s latest testimony to prosecutors.

According to Migueles, Lagos had promised to share his fees with him in exchange for help with the consortium’s case before the Supreme Court. Migueles said he told Vivanco about the arrangement after discussing equipment relocation costs with her in September 2023. However, he claims he did not disclose the specific amounts involved.

A few days later, Vivanco and other members of the Supreme Court’s Third Chamber ruled in favour of Belaz-Movitec, ordering Chilean state-owned mining company Codelco to compensate the consortium for relocating equipment. CIPER reports that two court rulings ordered payments totalling 5.441 billion Chilean pesos, including approximately 4.4 billion pesos under one of the rulings.

In testimony given on September 3, Migueles also described five payments he said he received from Lagos in connection with the consortium’s case. They totalled $95,000. According to his account, he received the first payment of $15,000 in cash in July 2023, following a favourable court ruling. In June 2024, he received a further $45,000.

Migueles claims he collected the money through currency exchange offices and spent most of it on everyday expenses, debt repayments and trips he took with Vivanco. He denies giving any of the money to the judge herself.

Migueles’s latest testimony contradicts his previous statements. In April 2026, he claimed that Vivanco had not known about the payments until charges were brought against him. In August, the former judge told prosecutors that she had not discussed the Belaz-Movitec case with either Migueles or the consortium’s lawyers.

According to CIPER, Migueles also described other instances in which he allegedly relayed Lagos’s questions to Vivanco about the progress of court proceedings. One concerned the property development company Inmobiliaria Fundamenta, for which Migueles said he received 13 million Chilean pesos in exchange for assistance.

Prosecutors acknowledged Migueles’s cooperation with the investigation and took his testimony into account. He was released from pre-trial detention on September 30.

Vivanco told CIPER that she was not familiar with the contents of the new testimony and therefore could not comment on it.

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The relationship between CBM and Codelco began in spring 2021, when CBM won a tender to build roads and remove soil as part of the Rajo Inca copper mining project. Codelco planned to invest $1.383 billion to extend the operating life of one of its seven mining divisions in the Salvador district of Chile.

In June 2021, BelAZ announced a contract to supply 18 vehicles to Chile. However, in September of the same year, Lithuanian customs detained 18 shipping containers at the port of Klaipėda containing four sets of components for mining dump trucks. BelAZ had been included in the EU’s fourth sanctions package, introduced after the forced landing of a Ryanair plane in Minsk.

On February 1, 2023, Codelco took the drastic step of terminating its contract with CBM and subsequently tasked Tepsac, Bailac, Komatsu and Detroit with completing the work.

The case has been heard in court and has also had a diplomatic dimension. Belarus’s Foreign Ministry intervened in support of the Belarusian company.